wednesday, May 31 2006
Unique rose images
Looking for rose photographs, fine art prints to decorate your home or office. Check these out.
michael moore sued
...by an Iraq vet who says the lefty polemicist twisted his words and ruined his reputation.
powerful ideas
...are being discussed by Shrinkwrapped and One Cosmos, who writes about the curious unhappiness of human beings who possess the greatest comforts in the history of man:
To the extent that we do not use the world as a plane to rediscover our divine “inwardness,” then we will be strangers in this world, wandering from pleasure to pleasure with “no direction home.” In other words, in our fallen, “exteriorized” state of consciousness, we require suffering to overcome our faults, to “tear ourselves from sin,” and to reascend back to our source. In the spiritual view, it is our illusory, exteriorized state that is the cause of our suffering. Therefore, to provide this illusory state with even less suffering--to try to make it completely comfortable and to eliminate all friction--is simply going to increase confusion and cause more souls to deviate from their proper end.
These are Nietzsche’s pathetic last men, who will live in a “pitiable comfort.” I’m afraid that we are well into that “false” singularity, and we can already see it’s baleful effects. I believe that ministering to the needs of these last men forms the basis of contemporary liberalism, which increasingly cannot tolerate discomfort, disappointment, or inconvenience. I believe it may have been Theodore Dalrymple who wrote that the fallacy at the heart of liberalism is that misery always rises to the level of the means available to alleviate it. Therefore, even if a liberal program “works,” it doesn’t work, because it simply creates an appetite--an expectation, really--that unhappiness or unfairness should not exist. To live one’s life in this way is a recipe for metaphysical disaster.
pack mentality
How many headlines contain "got their groove back"? Way too many.
the cult of overwork
baloney with sauce is still baloney
Most smart people have a hidden weakness and it’s this – they’re absolute suckers for anything that sounds clever.
As soon as you start hitting people with technical terms, fancy graphs, famous names and the like, you’ll immediately increase your credibility. If they’re smart, they’re even more likely to find themselves nodding in agreement. Many intelligent people would rather cut off a finger than admit they don’t know what you’re talking about....
I’ve been to quite a few consultancy presentations where all kinds of jargon and graphs are flashed up on the screen. The consultants will drop terms like “inverted blade-center uptime matrix” into the presentation while showing some baffling data on the screen. If I look around the room while this is going on, everyone will be nodding and wide-eyed. The audience is baffled by the cool-sounding words and the clever-looking graphs.
If, at this time, you ask the consultant what exactly an “inverted blade-center uptime matrix” is, they’ll often try to fob-you off with even more meaningless jargon. If you persist in trying to pin them down, they’ll start acting like you must be some kind of incompetent idiot for not understanding this stuff. And the audience will probably be on the consultant's side - they don't want to be seen as incompetent idiots.
Consultants behave this way because they know that’s how to get a sale. Bombard people with clever-sounding stuff they don’t really understand, and they’ll assume that you’re some kind of genius. It's a great way of making money.
seriously souped up solar power
IF YOU want efficient solar power, Victor Klimov has a deal for you. Give him one photon of sunlight, and he'll give you two electrons' worth of electricity.
Not impressed? You should be. In all solar cells now in use - in everything from satellites to pocket calculators - each incoming photon contributes at most one energised electron to the electric current it generates. Now Klimov, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, has broken through this barrier. He has shown that by shrinking the elements of a solar cell down to a few nanometres, or millionths of a millimetre, each captured photon can be made to generate not one, but two or even more charge carriers.
no, you can't even beat her with a toothbrush
Following are excerpts from an interview with the Mufti of Egypt Dr. Ali Gum'a, which aired on Al-Risala TV on May 26, 2006:
Ali Gum'a: Wife-beating is associated with the cultural status of women in the different societies. Women in some cultures are not averse to beatings. They consider it as an expression of masculinity, and as a kind of control, which she herself desires. In other societies, it is the exact opposite. We must follow reason. When we are dealing with certain societies...
I got a question from Canada. The man said: "Here, it is a crime to beat a wife, even with a toothbrush. Is this prohibition acceptable in Islam? Yes. Islam accepts that the beating of Canadian wives, in this culture and ambience... From childhood they are taught that beating women is a type of barbarism, savagery, and so on. There is nothing wrong with taking this into consideration, and adapting to society, because Islam did not command us to be aggressive towards women.
Which inspires us to present the lyrics to Shel Silverstein's classic, Masochistic Baby:
MASOCHISTIC BABY
Oh, ever since my Masochistic Baby went and left me
I got nothin' to hit but the wall.
She loved me when I beat her,
But I started actin' sweeter,
And that was no way to treat her at all.
Yes, she is the one that I'm dreamin' of,
And you always hurt the one you love.And ever since my Masochistic Baby went and left me,
I got nothin' to hit but the wall, oh no...
Nothin' to beat but the eggs
Nothin' to belt but my pants
Nothin' to whip but the cream
Nothin' to punch but the clock
Nothin' to strike but a match.
yes, why didn't he?
Throughout the film, Gore displays his passion for the global warming issue, and it is obvious that he has dedicated a substantial amount of time to learning about climate change and the greenhouse effect. This leads to an obvious question.
The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in December 1997, giving the Clinton-Gore administration more than three years to present it to the Senate for ratification. Given Gore's knowledge and passion for global warming, you wonder why the vice president didn't seize on the opportunity of a lifetime?
Maybe because the Senate voted 95-0 advising Gore not to accept any climate treaty (Kyoto) that exempted India and China. Kyoto did exactly that.
Also: MSNBC claims Gore is being "swift boated" about his crusade.
gas and hot air
IT IS CONVENIENTLY forgotten today that former Vice President Al Gore, among other leftists, once advocated that the government artificially raise gas prices to discourage oil consumption. With the market having set gasoline at an average price of just under $3 a gallon, some interesting things are happening. For one, leftists are proclaiming their outrage at the high price of gas.
Also, people are not abandoning their cars. They are not even carpooling. This is great evidence of how valuable a tool the automobile is. There is no other mode of transportation — not mass transit, not bicycles or in-line skates — so convenient.
iowahawk goes green
...with his Ten Things You Can Do to Save the Planet. Here are four:
1. Turn off faucets when not in use. While a single dripping faucet may not seem to be much of an environmental hazzard, the numbers really begin to add up when you're hosting a Sierra Club fundraising party for Laurie David and all 10 of your bathrooms are in use. Have your domestic staff check to make sure that electonic sink sensors are working properly, and use other water conservation methods such as installing low-flow bidets. Remember to remind your guests: "If it's yellow, let it mellow."
2. Upgrade to a new Gulfstream G550. Next time you take off for Cannes or Sundance or that big Environmental Defense Fund gala, stop and think how much fuel that clunky old G450 is using. Not only does the new G550 have 10.8% better fuel efficiency, it's quieter, has real burled walnut, and with a maximum cruising speed of Mach 0.885 you'll never be late for the Palm d'Or ceremony!
3. Crush a Third World economic development movement. One of the most pressing threats facing our environment is rising incomes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Only a generation ago, these proud dark people were happily frolicking in the rain forest, foraging for organic foods amid the wonders of nature. Now, corrupted by wealth, they are demanding environmentally hazardous consumer goods like cars and air conditioning and malaria medicine. You can do your part to stop this dangerous consumer trend by supporting environmentally aware leaders like Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro to foster an economy of sustainable low-impact ecolabor camps.
4. Don't Have Babies. Many people are shocked when they learn that fewer than 25% of the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild have been spayed or neutered. Sure, babies make great fashion accessories and it's fun to give them awesome names, like Kumquat Wildebeest Paltrow and Toploader Enchilada Cage. But these miniature humans will eventually grow and begin ravenously consuming the Earth's depleted reserves of aux pairs and psychotherapists.
tuesday, May 30 2006
iraq updates from Omar and Mohammed
Freedom of religion:
Radio Sawa brought some encouraging news about the state of freedom of faith in Kurdistan where hundreds of people have recently converted from Islam to to Christianity without facing the threat of being persecuted.
Of course it doesn't matter much if they converted to Judaism or Buddhism instead of Christianity or even the other way around; one's faith is one's choice and what we should care about is to see people practice this right without fear from being punished.
The report quotes an interesting statement of the PM of Kurdistan Nejervan Barzani (a Muslim himslef) who commented on the news by saying "I'd rather see a Muslim become Christian than to see him become a radical Muslim…"
More sensible de-ba'athification:
...the committee proposed to the Iraqi parliament a new law that includes considerable loosening of previous stiff de-ba'athification rules, mainly treating former "innocent" baa'th members of the 4th highest rank as retirees giving them full retirement rights and allowing those of the 5th highest rank to go back to their old jobs in the government offices and removing restrictions that banned those ba'ath members from assuming important positions in government offices (as high as general director or deputy minister). In fact the new law-once ratified-will oblige government offices and ministries to put those "clean members of the ba'ath" back in their jobs.
And busting CNN for sloppy translation:
Does the CNN have problems with translation from Arabic to English or is it a case of deliberate twisting of facts? I wasn't there at the press conference but I was able to find an audio clip of the same part of minister Zibari's statement through Radio Sawa, and what he said here is so much different from what the CNN claimed he did (my translation):
We respect Iran's and every other nation's right to pursue nuclear technology for research purposes and peaceful use given they accept [giving] the internationally required guarantees that this will not lead to an armament race in the region…
Listening to the 2nd version of the story (in Zibari's own voice) it is clear that Iraq recognizes Iran's right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes exclusively and is moreover asking Iran for guarantees, not the other way around CNN!
memorial day 2006
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only
because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
--George Orwell
To which we append "rough men and women."
the troops have moved on
One party is overly sanguine, unwilling to acknowledge its errors. The other is overly maudlin, unable to forgive the same. The Bush administration seeks to insulate the public from the reality of war, placing its burden on the few. The press has tried to fill that gap by exposing the raw brutality of the insurgency; but it has often done so without context, leaving a clear implication that we can never win.
In the past, the American public could turn to its sons for martial perspective. Soldiers have historically been perhaps the country's truest reflection, a socio-economic cross-section borne from common ideals. The problem is, this war is not being fought by World War II's citizen-soldiers. Nor is it fought by Vietnam's draftees. Its wages are paid by a small cadre of volunteers that composes about one-tenth of 1 percent of the population — America's warrior class.
The insular nature of this group — and a war that has spiraled into politicization — has left the Americans disconnected and confused. It's as if they have been invited into the owner's box to settle a first-quarter disagreement on the coach's play-calling. Not only are they unprepared to talk play selection, most have never even seen a football game.
ben stein
Remarks delivered on Saturday evening in Arlington, Virginia, at the Memorial Day weekend seminar and grief camp of TAPS -- the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.
THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME be a part of your family. This is the most important family on the planet right now. There is a First Family on Pennsylvania Avenue, but this is the real first family. The family of those who have paid the ultimate price to keep us free and dignified and alive.
A bad day for me is when I get stuck in traffic or have a toothache or notice that I have gained weight or my teenage son is surly.
A bad day for you is realizing that the only man or woman you have ever loved is gone for this lifetime.
A difficult day for me with my wife is when she's out at her bridge lesson and comes home late so my dinner is late.
A difficult day for you is when you wake up from a dream that your husband or wife or son or daughter or mother or father was alive and laughing with you and realize you'll never see that loveable person again for the rest of your natural lives.
A bad day for an ordinary American is seeing the stock market go down or watching his son sneak a beer.
A bad day for you is a sort of loneliness, a hopeless, cruel loneliness that cuts right to the bone like the cut of a knife, that tells you that there is no one there to hug you, no one to kiss you, no one to fix the kids' bikes, no one to wipe away the tears that just come uncontrollably when you least expect them.
A bad day for me is getting stuck in an airport security line. A bad day for you is being on the plane alone.
Yet your loneliness has meaning. Your loneliness, your pain, is the mortar and concrete that anchors the nation. The sacrifice your loved ones made, the sacrifice you made, that your kids made, is what makes the whole American world safe from terror.
Your loved ones' lives had what we all want: meaning. The knowledge you were doing something big for others. That is EVERYTHING in life.
Wall Street does not have it. Hollywood does not have it. They're just in it for the fame and the money.
Your loved ones were in it for unselfishness, for kindness, for love of one's fellow man. There is no higher meaning on this earth.
The media try to rob your husbands' and wives' and kids' lives of meaning saying this war is not about anything.
They're wrong and they say what they say because they don't see the truth. They print a story on the front page about Marines killing civilians in a town in Iraq and if they did, it was wrong. But the big media never report a MARINE throwing himself on a bomb to protect an Iraqi child, or a Marine giving his life to rid a town of murderers or a Marine or an Army man or woman or a Navy Seal or a Coast Guardsman offering up his life so that Iraqi human beings can have the same freedoms and rights we take for granted here in America.
The media are like grave robbers, robbing you of the certain knowledge that your spouses gave their lives for something deeply worthwhile: human dignity.
Your loved ones' lives and deaths had as much meaning at the lives and deaths of every American who died for freedom from Valley Forge to the Battle of the Bulge to Cho-Sin Reservoir to the Cu Chi tunnels to the Balkans to Kabul, Afghanistan, to Falluja, Iraq.
And if the media doesn't know it, every other American does. This is a very difficult fight, but the ordinary American knows what your loved ones have done and respects them.
Your families, your loved one, your children have more respect than Sean Penn and Barbra Streisand and the Dixie Chicks all put together times a million. And the media like to criticize because they know -- in their hearts -- that they will never have the guts that the man and woman in uniform have. I think media envy of your loved ones' courage has a lot do with media mockery of the war.
To heck with them. Your husbands are the real stars. Your wives and kids are the real stars. They burn brightly forever as long as there are free men and women and the longing for human freedom burns bright in the human heart.
John F. Kennedy said that here on earth, God's work is our work. That doesn't mean Wall Street's work. It doesn't mean the Washington Post's work. It doesn't mean Hollywood's work. It means the work you guys do and the work of your husbands and wives and kids. Living and dying for your fellow man. That is God's work in the deepest sense, and God bless you for what you do, and God keep you until you are with your loved ones again.
the michael carlson credo
Michael Carlson wrote the credo published here May of 2000 when he was a high school senior. At his parent’s request, he did a year of college and made the deans list. Then he enlisted the day after school was over and left for boot camp within the week. He kept a journal while in boot camp at Ft Benning where he was when the 911 attacks occurred. The journal entry for that day, which was also the date of final inspection for his unit, is excerpted here as well.
I was born in Wisconsin. We lived in a town called Webster, on a road called Lavern Lane. Since then Many things have changed, but many more remain the same. We no longer live in the country, we only go to church once or twice a year, and we no longer struggle to make ends meet. Today we live in they city, but we still have a Junk Yard, my dad still works sixteen hours a day, everyday. Today I am a man not a seven year old child. There are still cars every where. We own over 90. About twenty of them still run and twelve of those we store in the city. No we don’t have a parking lot. What we do is borrow our neighbors unused stalls for fixing there cars and doing other little things for them.
To read it all is to understand who we are memorializing today.
Also "One Year Later -- a Parent's Perspective"
why they fight
Meet Maj. Chris Curtain of the 10th Marine Regiment, a 35-year-old out of Bridgeport, Conn., Norwich University and - most recently - the Syrian-Iraq frontier.
That on-again, off-again hotspot doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves. Once upon a time it was a sieve; al Qaeda fighters and other terrorists entered Iraq with virtual impunity and then set about their deadly tasks.
Lately the traffic has been choked down - not eliminated, but perhaps brought under control. That's a critical step in controlling the Iraqi insurgency.
For this, thank Curtain and his comrades.
Pressed for details, the major smiles wryly, a hint of amusement in his eyes, and just keeps his counsel. It wasn't his first trip to Iraq, nor is it likely to be his last - and if not Iraq, then somewhere equally as demanding, equally as dangerous.
Such is life for a major of Marines as the Long War proceeds. He has a wife and three children, but America must come first. They know it, he knows it - and that raises a fundamental question.
Why?
"I love my country," Curtain says.
That's it?
"The adventure," he adds. "And I like the people."
The twinkle leaves his eyes.
"I am part of something larger than myself. I am part of an organization that stands for something."
message from a proud mother
Gayle and Susan Gertson had two sons serve in Iraq. Around the time Cindy Sheehan became a media darling, Susan wrote us and sent us pictures. We reprint her message today.
Dear Editors,
I have been contemplating all day whether to send this to you in response to the article on Mrs. Sheehan. I have a lot of strong feelings on the subject, but I want people to understand that she doesn't speak for all of us. Both of my sons served in Iraq with honor and excelled at what they did. I am truly proud of both of them and can't stand to have people diminish what our troops are trying to do for the Iraqi people - after all, they deserve to live as well as the rest of us, many of whom take for granted our great way of life.
Along with my letter I am attaching an article from the Stryker Brigade News, where my son's death is mentioned. These friends of his are still in Iraq and have suffered many losses - I see no need for the Sheehan's of the world to add to their suffering.
I am also sending a picture of each of my sons in Iraq.Susan Gertson
Here is Mrs. Gertson's message to Cindy Sheehan (see post below if the name doesn't ring a bell):
As the mother of two soldiers, my heart goes out to you and I understand your pain, if not your actions. I'm not sure where to begin, so I'll start by telling you this:
My youngest son served as a medic with 4ID at the start of the war in Iraq. He had no A/C for months and lived on nothing but MRE's for 6-7 months, giving a lot of those to the hungry Iraqi kids, causing his weight to drop from 202 to 160.
He was astounded by the poverty the Iraqi people lived in, while Saddam lived in TOTAL luxury. As a medic, he had to treat not only our soldiers, but the innocent victims targeted by their own people. I don't think he ever got used to the wounded children.
He left his wife here, expecting their first child. While he wasn't crazy about going to Iraq, he truly believed in what he was doing there, and after serving four years in the Army, he can still be recalled to go back to Iraq.
Our oldest son was a sniper with the Stryker Brigade and had been in Iraq for four months when he was killed in February this year.
He always talked about the children there, giving them candy, working on their bicycles, etc. He said if we help these children now, maybe they won't grow up to hate OUR children! He told us more than once "Freedom Isn't Free!!".
He was very proud of what he was doing and truly believed we are doing the right thing in Iraq. He had already re-enlisted for Army Ranger School.
Whether you like Bush or not, whether you voted for Bush or not - you are letting your personal feelings and your grief cloud your judgment, according to your current actions. We had two sons serve in Iraq and one didn't return. They both believed in their service there, and you are totally degrading every soldier we have serving today. We have a lot of friends still in Iraq - try telling them they are wasting their time - I'm sure you won't like their response!
When you, and others, degrade our President and our military, you are giving our enemies more reasons to harm our troops. It demeans everything they are trying to accomplish. Our military is still voluntary and while most signed up for the benefits, they also knew there was always a chance of combat action.
The attacks of the terrorists have a very long history, dating back to Jimmy Carter's "supreme reign" until the present. George W. Bush is the ONLY President who has had enough strength and resolve to do anything at all to protect not only us, but the rest of the world as well. Don't you think it's about time we put a halt to these crazy people, or would you rather wait until they wipe out all decent people?
If you really want to put your time to good use - try doing something in support of our troops, like showing them the respect they deserve. That includes their Commander-in-Chief. We're there, and we have to finish the job. That's what most of our troops will tell you they want. I don't want both of my sons' service, and one's death, to be in vain.
Again, my sympathies to you on the loss of your son - may you find peace and the strength to do what is right for our country.
Susan Gertson
Proud Supporter of Our Troops
Proud Mom of Two Soldiers
Proud Supporter of Our President
google forgets
It's kind of sad. They change their homepage logo for all sorts of holidays and occasions. Just last week they paid tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday. But Memorial Day doesn't seem to rate anything at all.
Here are the occasions Google did bother to remember.
sunday may 28, 2006
cbs's culture of corruption
...turns Democrat William Jefferson into a Republican. Hmm. Maybe if the GOP loses seats in November, CBS can restore their majority by just turning Dems into Republicans.
five things never to do to your car
mystery meat
William Saletan thinks we should grow our meat in labs. But is that organic?
proof
They say you can’t prove the existence of Spirit, but that’s not true, any more than you can’t prove the existence of love or beauty. Of course you can, but only to someone who’s inclined to accept the appropriate proof. In my case, once I began achieving a bit of “vertical liftoff” ten or eleven years ago, I began to “discover” things about Spirit. Or at least I thought I was discovering them. Turns out I wasn’t, any more than I discovered Lake Tahoe on vacation just because I had never been there before.
Two things about these “discoveries” were striking. First, I suddenly had the capacity to understand the meaning of spiritual writing in a way that I never had before. Somehow I understood its “within,” or inner significance. Secondly, instead of a process of “learning,” it was more like a process of confirmation. In other words, I would think that I had discovered something by myself, only to discover that others before me had discovered the same thing.
a war to be proud of
...what did 2,400 brave and now deceased Americans really sacrifice for in Iraq, along with thousands more who were wounded? And what were billions in treasure spent on? And what about the hundreds of collective years of service offered by our soldiers? What exactly did intrepid officers in the news like a Gen. Petreus, or Col. McMaster, or Lt. Col Kurilla fight for?
First, there is no longer a mass murderer atop one of the oil-richest states in the world. Imagine what Iraq would now look like with $70 a barrel oil, a $50 billion unchecked and ongoing Oil-for-Food U.N. scandal, the 15th year of no-fly zones, a punitative U.N. embargo on the Iraqi people — all perverted by Russian arms sales, European oil concessions, and frenzied Chinese efforts to get energy contracts from Saddam.
The Kurds would remain in perpetual danger. The Shiites would simply be harvested yearly, in quiet, by Saddam’s police state. The Marsh Arabs would by now have been forgotten in their toxic dust-blown desert. Perhaps Saddam would have upped his cash pay-outs for homicide bombers on the West Bank.
Mohammar Khaddafi would be starting up his centrifuges and adding to his chemical weapons depots. Syria would still be in Lebanon. Washington would probably have ceased pressuring Egypt and the Gulf States to enact reform. Dr. Khan’s nuclear mail-order house would be in high gear. We would still be hearing of a “militant wing” of Hamas, rather than watching a democratically elected terrorist clique reveal its true creed to the world.
But just as importantly, what did these rare Americans not fight for? Oil, for one thing. The price skyrocketed after they went in. The secret deals with Russia and France ended. The U.N. petroleum perfidy stopped. The Iraqis, and the Iraqis alone — not Saddam, the French, the Russians, or the U.N. — now adjudicate how much of their natural resources they will sell, and to whom.
Our soldiers fought for the chance of a democracy; that fact is uncontestable. Before they came to Iraq, there was a fascist dictatorship. Now, after three elections, there is an indigenous democratic government for the first time in the history of the Middle East. True, thousands of Iraqis have died publicly in the resulting sectarian mess; but thousands were dying silently each year under Saddam — with no hope that their sacrifice would ever result in the first steps that we have already long passed.
Our soldiers also removed a great threat to the United States. Again, the crisis brewing over Iran reminds us of what Iraq would have reemerged as. Like Iran, Saddam reaped petroprofits, sponsored terror, and sought weapons of mass destruction. But unlike Iran, he had already attacked four of his neighbors, gassed thousands of his own, and violated every agreement he had ever signed. There would have been no nascent new democracy in Iran that might some day have undermined Saddam, and, again unlike Iran, no internal dissident movement that might have come to power through a revolution or peaceful evolution.
saturday may 27, 2006
keeping perspective
From the Anchoress:
Perhaps I am a dim bulb, but President Bush has never surprised me, and that is probably why I have never felt let down or “betrayed” by him. He is, in essentials, precisely who he has ever been. He did not surprise me when he managed, in August of 2001, to find a morally workable solution in the matter of Embryonic Stem Cells.
He did not surprise me when, a month later, he stood on a pile of rubble and lifted a broken city from its knees. When my NYFD friends told me of the enormous consolation and strength he brought to his meetings with grieving families, I was not surprised. When the World Series opened in New York City and the President was invited to throw the first pitch, there was no surprise in his throwing (while wearing body armor) a perfect strike.
Read the whole thing. It's good to remember.
siepp versus sheehan
Cindy Sheehan is a useful idiot, a rattle-headed tool of everyone from Not In Our Name, who even as the Twin Towers were still smoldering worried more about retaliation against the poor Taliban than about women oppressed by the Taliban; to pro-Palestinian terrorist apologists; to your friendly neighborhood Stalinists at various branches of International ANSWER, whose objectives range from freeing Mumia to putting a bright and happy spin on daily life in North Korea.
And yet the most idiotic statement in Sheehan’s new book, Dear President Bush, comes not from Sheehan herself but from Howard Zinn, who writes in the introduction: “A box-cutter can bring down a tower. A poem can build up a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution.”
A box-cutter can bring down a tower. By now, I suppose, we should be used to the hard Left’s extending underdog status to the worst of mass murderers; still, the sheer gall of beginning a series of David-and-Goliath metaphors with that one is breathtaking.
pelosi babble
Our intention is to establish a record so that we can go forward with public policy that has the support of the public and they know why certain decisions are made. The public is … they’re beautiful -- they’re optimistic, they’re positive, they’re concerned now about the direction of the country. But they project their own honesty on to some other people. Sometimes they think things are the way they are because that’s the only way they can be. That’s completely wrong. These people [Republicans] have acted in a way that is contrary to the public interest.
She goes on and on. Bush may mangle the language, but he's always clear about what he means.
basketball by the numbers
Moneyball Part 2. Malcolm Gladwell reviews a book by three economists—David Berri, Martin Schmidt, and Stacey Brook—who have come up with an algorithm for assessing the value of professional basketball players.
Simply put, they rank players according to what they call a Win Score—which is the number of wins that player alone can be said to have been responsible for in a given season...
I’ve noticed, in reading reactions to the book around the blogosphere, a certain residual skepticism, particularly among hard-core basketball fans. Someone wrote in to point out, for instance, that Shawn Marion’s Win Score this past season was higher than Steve Nash’s, when common sense would suggest that the team would suffer far more from the loss of Nash than Marion. I think that's right. Nash is more ultimately more valuable to the Suns than anyone else.
ceo pay
Gladwell also noted:
After reading the article in the New York Times yesterday on the hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation given over the past few years to the CEO of Home Depot, I ran across this: in 1949, the highest paid CEO in America was Charlie Wilson of General Motors, who earned $586,100 in salary, bonus and stock. That's roughly equivalent to what some of the better-compensated CEO's are making today.
But what did Wilson pay in taxes? $430,350.
Times have changed.
Is there a wistfulness in that recollection? For the "good old days" when making $580k left you with $155k? Read the comments.
bargain-rate bribes
by Burt Prelutsky
As Shakespeare once observed, more or less, who steals my purse steals trash, blah blah blah, but he that filches from me my good name, yada yada yada, makes me poor indeed.
Well, the Bard of Avon and the Burt of North Hills are in total agreement regarding the importance of one’s reputation, although I do think he went slightly overboard with that trash line. I can only assume the Bard never had his wallet lifted, and then had to go about replacing his driver’s license, and all those Visa, MasterCharge, Social Security, Medicare, and Auto Club, cards.
I have no reason to think that Bill and I are the only people who, like Cyrano de Bergerac, regard our reputations as white plumes well worth defending, even at the point of a sword. So, tell me, how is it that so many politicians, no matter their party, place so little value on their own?
I was just a kid when one of Eisenhower’s closest associates, Sherman Adams, saw his own career scuttled when it came out that he’d accepted a vicuna coat from someone who wanted access to the White House.
It wasn’t too many years later that Lyndon Johnson’s protégé, Bobby Baker, saw his future turn to ashes when he accepted a stereo set from somebody whose name wasn’t Santa Claus.
These days, we see the folks up on Capitol Hill running around in a panic, trying to pass measures to deal with ethics violations. And just what are we talking about? What is it that has these congressmen and senators in such a tizzy? What is it they have to vow never to do again? Hold on to your hats, boys and girls. These assorted millionaires have to make the ultimate sacrifice. They have to promise to pay for their own vacations, their own rounds of golf, and even -- dare I say it? – their own lunches!
Now, please understand, I am not claiming to be a saint. Heck, if I were in congress on Pork Barrel Day and a lobbyist offered me $10 million to vote for some unnecessary bridge being built in Alaska or for a highway leading from no place to nowhere in West Virginia, I just might take it.
But, for crying out loud, how proud can I be when people boast about America’s having the best politicians money can buy when I know the bozos can be had for the price of a coat, a stereo, or even a ham sandwich?!
friday may 26, 2006
uh oh
For all the New York City students working to meet rigorous new academic standards, nothing is more important than having a good teacher. Teaching is a tough job, requiring a high level of talent, drive, knowledge and skill. But a new study of graduating college seniors found that students who major in education - the future teachers of America - have lower levels of literacy than all other students studied.
why your boss is overpaid
From Forbes.
hillary says slow down
Despite having freeways engineered for speeds over 80 mph, Americans endured a 55 mph speed limit from the days of Jimmy Carter until the Republican sweep of Congress in 1994.
The reason for lowering the speed limit to 55 was oil conservation. When the oil shock passed, the Democrats refused to reset the speed limit because higher speed limits would increase accidents. No doubt true. But why stop at 55? Lowering all speed limits to 20 mph would eliminate all 42,000 traffic deaths each year.
So we poked along (or paid tickets) because the nannies in the Democrat party thought it best for us. Guess what? The idea still lives.
REPORTER: During the Carter administration there was a 55-mile-an-hour speed limit, which even the oil company executives say driving slower would save gas. Would you favor a return to a national speed limit?"
HILLARY: The 55 mile speed limit really does lower gas usage, and wherever it can be required and the people will accept it, we ought to do it. But there are other things that we ought to do it. At every gas station, there ought to be a little sign which says, "Have you checked to see if your tires are inflated to the right pressure?"
a climate scientist writes al gore
I have just seen your new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," about the threat that global warming presents to humanity. I think you did a very good job of explaining global warming theory, and your presentation was effective. Please convey my compliments to your good friend, Laurie David, for a job well done.
As a climate scientist myself -- you might remember me...I'm the one you mistook for your "good friend," UK scientist Phil Jones during my congressional testimony some years back -- I have a few questions that occurred to me while watching the movie.
1) Why did you make it look like hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, droughts, and ice calving off of glaciers and falling into the ocean, are only recent phenomena associated with global warming? You surely know that hurricane experts have been warning congress for many years that the natural cycle in hurricanes would return some day, and that our built-up coastlines were ripe for a disaster (like Katrina, which you highlighted in the movie). And as long as snow continues to fall on glaciers, they will continue to flow downhill toward the sea. Yet you made it look like these things wouldn't happen if it weren't for global warming. Also, since there are virtually no measures of severe weather showing a recent increase, I assume those graphs you showed actually represented damage increases, which are well known to be simply due to greater population and wealth. Is that right?
Read it all.
Also: Inconvenient Truths, Indeed takes on Gore point by point.
too diverse
From IraqPundit:
You know what's wrong with Iraq's brand new unity government? It's too "diverse." Sez who? Sez the Los Angeles Times. No, I'm not kidding. In coverage so gloomy that it took the sun out of the Iraqi sky, the LA Times wrote that Prime Minister Maliki "faces a perilous obstacle course. He has a Cabinet so wide-ranging that it could collapse, a 34-point program aimed at satisfying each faction, and a disillusioned, weary nation to govern.”
That's one sad mouthful. But in case you missed the LAT's contribution to Iraqi political discourse, the story rephrases its central insight: Iraq's new Cabinet “may be too diverse to prevail…”
Silly me. Political diversity -- such as a cabinet with 19 Shiites, eight Sunni Arabs, eight Kurds and one Christian, and including four women -- has never even occurred to me as a threat. The Iraq I knew didn't suffer from any political diversity at all; everything was ultimately run by a handful of Tikritis who shared a common ethnicity, religion, and psychosis. Not once, as I grew up under the Baathist regime, did I say to myself, "Well, at least we don't have to deal with diversity. That would ruin us."
On the other hand, I remember that there were always people who did think just that way about Iraq. Among them were Arab apologists for a dictatorship that served Arab Nationalist interests but made Iraqi life a nightmare. Given the country's ethnic make-up, these apologists argued, only a strong hand could hold Iraq together. That was an expression of dismissal of Iraqis, of contempt for them. The LAT's argument is no different from theirs; it's just boiled down to cabinet-level contempt.
You know, the Western education I received taught me to value representative government, not to fear it. Not to worry, though; the Western press is doing its best to qualify those values.
chilling news
The US economy is roaring. Yesterday, first quarter stats were revised to reflect a 5.3% rate of growth. Unemployment is low.
That means for MSM it is time to hang crepe. Two weeks ago the LA Daily News splashed a frontpage story full of handwringing: gasoline prices are up, housing prices starting to slide etc. Today, it reported the boom this way:
Oomph Leaving Today's Economy
Washington -- The economy showed even more pep in the first quarter, zipping ahead at a 5.3 percent pace. But a less energetic housing market and high energy prices are nowe taking out some of the oomph.
The story ran on page 3 of the business section.
thursday may 25, 2006
waiting for gore-dot
...that's a French "dot" (rhymes with doh!)
Al Gore can't stop concocting flimsy, easily fact-checked fibs. Quite an irony for a guy flagging a polemic titled "An Inconvenient Truth."
great american boom continues
Larry Kudlow sums it up.
bob dylan turned 65 yesterday
...and Mark Steyn reprised the column he wrote celebrating Bob's 60th. Hilarious:
I first noticed a sudden uptick in Bob Dylan articles maybe a couple of months ago, when instead of Pamela Anderson's breasts or J-Lo's bottom bursting through the National Post masthead there appeared to be a shriveled penis that had spent way too long in the bath.
On closer inspection, this turned out to be Bob Dylan's head. He was, it seems, getting ready to celebrate his birthday. For today, he turns 60. Sixty? I think the last time I saw him on TV was the 80th birthday tribute to Sinatra six years ago, and, to judge from their respective states, if Frank was 80, Bob had to be at least 130. He mumbled his way through Restless Farewell, though neither words nor tune were discernible, and then shyly offered, "Happy Birthday, Mister Frank." Frank sat through the number with a stunned look, no doubt thinking, "Geez, that's what I could look like in another 20, 25 years if I don't ease up on the late nights."
shamnesty
This "shamnesty" bill spells out the level of contempt the Senate has for middle-class Americans. This "comprehensive" bill includes:
• In-state tuition for illegal aliens. Your kid has to pay full freight if they cross state lines, but the illegal alien who broke into the country doesn't.
• All temporary guest workers have to be paid the prevailing wage. American citizens do not have to be paid prevailing wage.
• All agricultural guest workers under this bill cannot be fired by their employers except for what the bill calls "just cause." However, American agricultural workers can be fired for any reason.
• Illegal aliens are made eligible for Social Security. Not only will they receive retirement benefits, but their children will receive survivor benefits should the parents pass away. This is at a time when we are trying to keep Social Security solvent for the next generation.
• Expands the visa lottery program, which is itself a questionable way to make visa distribution decisions.
• Employers of illegal aliens get amnesty, too. Employers would be exempt from civil and criminal tax and criminal liability under immigration law. God forbid we hold employers accountable for helping illegal aliens break the law and being the magnet that has drawn them here for years.
• Taxpayer dollars to radical immigrant-rights groups so they can help illegal aliens adjust their status. Millions of your tax dollars will go to the same groups that organized those rallies where people who came here illegally waved foreign flags and thumbed their noses at our laws.
the next wave: crowdsourcing
From Wired, a fascinating look at how the 'net is changing industries from stock photography to R&D.
joan baez: his land is your land
For 14 years urban "farmers" have been squatting on 14 acres of industrial property owned by Ralph Horowitz. They've done wonderful things with the land, enriching the soil and growing food. It's a long saga, but now Horowitz wants 1) to be paid $16.35 million or 2) for the gardeners to clear out.
So what do these "mostly Mexican and Central American immigrants" do? Call Hollywood, Joan Baez and other predictably sanctimonious celebs.
And so it was that Joan Baez climbed a tree yesterday to protest one man's right to his private property. She was joined by Daryl Hannah, Ben Harper and two veteran tree sitters: Julia Hill and John Quigley.
Up amid the branches, Baez, whose music fueled many a 1960s protest, dangled on a small platform a few boughs away from renowned tree-sitters Julia "Butterfly" Hill and John Quigley. Though the folk singer said she'd eventually have to go home and leave the tree-sitting to her more seasoned counterparts, she praised the farm as an important cultural icon and sang a few powerful bars of "We Shall Not Be Moved" in Spanish to illustrate her point.
Hill spent more than 700 days aloft to save a 100-year-old redwood in Northern California, and Quigley gained notoriety for his two months in an old oak tree in Santa Clarita in 2002. The tree was moved rather than chopped down.
Yes, the grand oak was moved, not chopped. Which was the developer's plan all along. Quigley and cohorts contended such a move would kill the tree; they were wrong.
But back to our thrilling tale:
To Lucy Maldonado, who's worked the land for the past 10 years, the farm represents a link to the past and a place where her kids can run around freely. Amid rows of cactus, paplotl, pipicha and alachi, a collection of more than 150 different indigenous plants, vines and herbs, she grows food she couldn't otherwise find at the grocery store.
"It's important because it's something for our children," she said in Spanish. "They can learn about the land and their culture here. We can get the food we need."
Uh, what culture might that be? Reconquista? Horowitz might find a quick solution by having the INS check IDs. Or the farmers might ask their rich friends to pony-up the $$ to buy the land. This way Lucy's children could learn about American culture (private property rights, rule of law etc).
If that fails, they can always plant their crops in Hannah and Joan's backyards, right?
wednesday may 24, 2006
barney slices blarney
Who'd a thunk it? Lliberal Rep. Barney Frank (D. Mass.) took to the House floor to explain free market economics to the porkmeisters:
Mr. Chairman, I am here to confess my reading incomprehension. I have listened to many of my conservative friends talk about the wonders of the free market, of the importance of letting the consumers make their best choices, of keeping government out of economic activity, of the virtues of free trade, but then I look at various agricultural programs like this one. Now, it violates every principle of free market economics known to man and two or three not yet discovered.
So I have been forced to conclude that in all of those great free market texts by Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and all the others that there is a footnote that says, by the way, none of this applies to agriculture. Now, it may be written in high German, and that may be why I have not been able to discern it, but there is no greater contrast in America today than between the free enterprise rhetoric of so many conservatives and the statist, subsidized, inflationary, protectionist, anti-consumer agricultural policies, and this is one of them.
In particular, I have listened to people, and some of us have said let us protect workers and the environment in trade; let us not have unrestricted free trade; but let us have trade that respects worker rights and environmental rights. And we have been excoriated for our lack of concern for poor countries.
There is no greater obstacle, as it is now clear in the Doha round, to the completion of a comprehensive trade policy than the American agricultural policy, with one exception, European agricultural policy, which is much worse and just as phony.
Sugar is an example. This program is an interference with the legitimate efforts at economic self-help in many foreign nations. So I appreciate the leadership of the gentleman from Arizona [Jeff Flake] and the gentleman from Oregon [Roy Blumenauer]. Here is a chance for some of my free-enterprise-professing friends to get honest with themselves, and now maybe we will see some born-again free enterprisers in the agricultural field.
the big bungle
...virtually all of the gripping stories from Katrina were untrue. All of those stories about, in Paula Zahn’s words, “bands of rapists, going block to block”? Not true. The tales of snipers firing on medevac helicopters? Bogus. The yarns, peddled on Oprah by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the New Orleans police chief, that “little babies” were getting raped in the Superdome and that the bodies of the murdered were piling up? Completely false. The stories about poor blacks dying in comparatively huge numbers because American society “left them behind”? Nah-ah. While most outlets limited themselves to taking Nagin’s estimate of 10,000 dead at face value, Editor and Publisher—the watchdog of the media—ran the headline, “Mortuary Director Tells Local Paper 40,000 Could Be Lost in Hurricane.”
In all of Louisiana, not just New Orleans, the total dead from Katrina was roughly 1,500. Blacks did not die disproportionately, nor did the poor. The only group truly singled out in terms of mortality was the elderly. According to a Knight-Ridder study, while only 15 percent of the population of New Orleans was over the age of 60, some 74 percent of the dead were 60 or older, and almost half were older than 75. Blacks were, if anything, slightly underrepresented among the dead given their share of the population.
This barely captures how badly the press bungled Katrina coverage. Keep in mind that the most horrifying tales of woe that captivated the press and prompted news anchors to scream—quite literally—at federal officials occurred within the safe zone around the Superdome where the press was operating. Shame on local officials for fomenting fear and passing along newly minted urban legends, but double shame on the press for recycling this stuff uncritically.
Members of the press had access to the Superdome. Why not just run in and look for the bodies? Interview the rape victims? Couldn’t be bothered? The major networks had hundreds of people in New Orleans. Was there not a single intern available to fact-check? The coverage actually cost lives. Helicopters were grounded for 24 hours in response to media reports of sniper attacks. At least two patients died waiting to be evacuated.
Dan Rather said Katrina was the media's finest hour. Newspapers that printed bogus stories won Pulitzer prizes. Get the picture?
our capitol as criminal safe house?
Congressional leaders of both parties are in a snit because the FBI --operating with a warrant from a judge-- searched the offices of Congressman William Jefferson (the guy who keeps cash in his freezer and was caught on tape taking a $100,000 bribe.) The snit is about separation of powers.
Analysis here.
This can't be the same Congress that issues subpoenas for all sorts of probes into the executive branch and the agencies it runs. Does Congress really want to establish a precedent that neither branch has to answer subpoenas if issued by the other, even if approved by a judge -- which this particular subpoena was?
The FBI had a valid subpoena for the information in Jefferson's office. He refused to provide it. The FBI had little choice but to go in and take it, and from the description given in the Washington Post, they took extraordinary care not to confiscate legitimate data relating to his legislative responsibilities.
Congress already has enough problems with corruption and scandal without adding even more arrogance to top it. If the leadership wants to argue that their status as elected officials somehow gives them the ability to disregard subpoenas and court orders, then the American people may want to trade that leadership to ensure that Congress understands that it operates under the same laws as the rest of us. Hastert and Boehner do not argue against an imperial presidency, but rather they are arguing for an untouchable political elite, where our elected officials risk nothing by taking bribes and selling their votes to the highest bidder. After all, the evidence of those transactions will almost always reside in their offices -- and if they can ignore duly executed subpoenas and search warrants, then they can sell themselves at will.
Tom Wolfe was in town last night
...and I was lucky to get second row seats to hear his lecture. Much of what he said echoed this recent lecture, so if you haven't read it, enjoy. He noted that most novelists have given up trying to capture the zeigeist because it changes too fast.
For an example, he cited Paris Hilton. A novelist might contrive a plot where a wealthy heiress who participated in a porno video would be blackmailed for $5 million to spare her reputation. Complications in getting the money would fuel the plot.
Instead our society rewarded an unknown twinky with fame and celebrity because of her porno. Wolfe noted that in addition to her TV show, Paris Hilton also has a line of handbags. As did Monica Lewinsky. What is is with females and handbags? he wondered.
Asked about his trademark white suit, Wolfe said he currently owns 32. The story behind the suit: he moved to New York from Richmond, Virginia in the 1950s to work as reporter in early summer. Wearing a jacket and tie was mandatory. His white suit was of a heavy fabric, so we waited until November before wearing it. This irritated people in the newsroom. Their irritation amused him so he kept wearing it.
After his first book was published, he found himself being asked questions by reporters instead of asking them, an uncomfortable change. His dandy attire served as a persona, and he's stuck with all these years.
JB
bush hatred endangering america
Bush-hatred has reached such intensity that CIA officers and other bureaucrats are leaking major secrets about anti-terrorism policy and communications intelligence that undermine our ability to fight Islamic extremism.
Would newspapers in the midst of World War II have printed the fact that the United States had broken German and Japanese codes, enabling the enemy to secure its communications? Or revealed how and where Nazi spies were being interrogated?
Nowadays, newspapers win Pulitzer Prizes for such disclosures. In Congress and in much of the media, the immediate reaction to news that the National Security Agency was intercepting international terrorist communications was not to say, "Good work - and how can we help?" Rather, it was to scream about a "domestic spying" scandal, as though Richard Nixon were back in the White House and tapping the telephone of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
poor poor pitiful me
Halle Berry is a victim:
HALLE BERRY still feels the victim of racism in America, despite her vast success and wealth. The Oscar-winning actress is saddened that the colour of her skin should still be an issue. She says, "Every day I wake up with this brown skin. I don't care how much money I have, I don't care how many movies I do, how many awards I have on my shelf, every day I am still aware that I am a woman of colour in this country and there is still certain discrimination that goes along with that, and that does not change.
Every day I wake and I'm still 5'8" and it doesn't change.
"No amount of money and awards changes that. What changes discrimination is the consciousness of people. I do see that changing gradually, but are we there? "I do not think that we live in a colour-blind society, where racism is null and void - that is pretty absurd. "But I believe that it is possible that things are moving in that direction, and I believe that one day, colour and race won't matter. "I hope I am here to see it, but it hasn't happened yet."
I have a dream that one day celebrities, black or white, won't skate on a hit and run just because they're rich, famous and gorgeous.
most dangerous words on the web
Don't try this at home--not if you want to have a working computer. Search for "Free Screensavers," we're told, and 64% of the sites you'll find are the kinds that can gum up your machine with spyware or a computer virus.
Here's their list of the eight most dangerous search terms:
1. Free screensavers
2. Bearshare
3. Screensavers
4. Winmx
5. Limewire
6. Download Yahoo Messenger
7. Lime wire
8. Free ringtones
tuesday may 23, 2006
white house sandwich
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Christopher J. Dodd said today he has "decided to do all the things that are necessary to prepare to seek the presidency in 2008."
The Connecticut Democrat will hire staff, raise money and travel around the country in the next few months as he tries to enlist support.
If Dodd could get Ted Kennedy as veep, they could invite waitresses over for an Oval Office sandwich.
Those to the manner born who’ve been in trouble -- Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd, for instance, who participated in the famous “waitress sandwich” at La Brasserie in 1985, while their dates were in the bathroom -- have tended to get out of it by claiming that their boyish high jinks had simply gotten out of hand.
Even in 1985, both were too old for "boyish" hijinks. They were acting like spoiled pigs, forcing an unwilling waitress to be the meat in their sandwich. Upper crust? Yes. Class? Never.
pete dupont
Since 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, America's population has increased by 42%, the country's inflation-adjusted gross domestic product has grown 195%, the number of cars and trucks in the United States has more than doubled, and the total number of miles driven has increased by 178%.
But during these 35 years of growing population, employment, and industrial production, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, the environment has substantially improved. Emissions of the six principal air pollutants have decreased by 53%. Carbon monoxide emissions have dropped from 197 million tons per year to 89 million; nitrogen oxides from 27 million tons to 19 million, and sulfur dioxide from 31 million to 15 million. Particulates are down 80%, and lead emissions have declined by more than 98%.
When it comes to visible environmental improvements, America is also making substantial progress:
• The number of days the city of Los Angeles exceeded the one-hour ozone standard has declined from just under 200 a year in the late 1970s to 27 in 2004.
• The Pacific Research Institute's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators shows that "U.S. forests expanded by 9.5 million acres between 1990 and 2000."
• While wetlands were declining at the rate of 500,000 acres a year at midcentury, they "have shown a net gain of about 26,000 acres per year in the past five years," according to the institute.
• Also according to the institute, "bald eagles, down to fewer than 500 nesting pairs in 1965, are now estimated to number more than 7,500 nesting pairs."
Environmentally speaking, America has had a very good third of a century; the economy has grown and pollutants and their impacts upon society are substantially down.
revisionist history
Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unity government despite terrorist attacks and provocations. Yet for some critics of the president, these are minor matters. Like swallows to Capistrano, they keep returning to the same allegations--the president misled the country in order to justify the Iraq war; his administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments; Saddam Hussein turned out to be no threat since he didn't possess weapons of mass destruction; and helping democracy take root in the Middle East was a postwar rationalization. The problem with these charges is that they are false and can be shown to be so--and yet people continue to believe, and spread, them. Let me examine each in turn:
gop foodfight
From AskMom:
Call me practical. Or cynical. Or opportunistic. But then, I spent years lobbying. For decades I've watched the Republican Party swallow the all-or-nothing suicide pill here in Washington State. Even more to the point, I raised six children. Who now, as adults, are all friends. And from that perspective I know what to do about the current GOP foodfights:
Just. Stop. Now.
Or Mom will bash your little pointed heads together and send you to your rooms until you are all so lonely and bored you'll be happy to come out and play nice. Yes, I know you have pet peeves you just can't imagine compromising. Yes, I know some of you think we should let the babies Democrats run things for a while just to make a good contrast with your ever-so-superior ideas.
If you've actually considered this opinion, please think through this hypothetical scenario:
President Al Gore.
9-11-2001.
Now that you have come back to your senses, let's talk reality. Politics is the art of the possible, people. We can expect to see perfect solutions to our political problems when we see that one perfect man walking among us sinners again. Until then, if we keep quarreling in the family room, we won't have time or energy left for the real bullies out on the street.
We can afford to cut other decent, responsible adults some slack as regards immigration, campaign finance reform or whatever. What we cannot afford is to put co-dependents and apologists in charge while terrorists try to blow up civilization.
anti anti-americanism
How does the United States deal with a corrupt world in which we are blamed even for the good we do, while others are praised when they do wrong or remain indifferent to suffering?
We are accused of unilateral and preemptory bullying of the madman Mr. Ahmadinejad, whose reactors that will be used to “wipe out” the “one-bomb” state of Israel were supplied by Swiss, German, and Russian profit-minded businessmen. No one thinks to chastise those who sold Iran the capability of destroying Israel.
Here in the United States we worry whether we are tough enough with the Gulf sheikdoms in promoting human rights and democratic reform. Meanwhile China simply offers them cash for oil, no questions asked. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez pose as anti-Western zealots to Western naifs. The one has never held an election; the other tries his best to end the democracy that brought him to power. Meanwhile our fretting elites, back from Europe or South America, write ever more books on why George Bush and the Americans are not liked.
the end of liberal thought
Welcome to the thoughtless world of contemporary liberalism. Beginning in the 1960s, liberalism, once the home of many deep thinkers, began to substitute feeling for thought and descended into superficiality.
One-word put-downs of opponents' ideas and motives were substituted for thoughtful rebuttal. Though liberals regard themselves as intellectual -- their views, after all, are those of nearly all university professors -- liberal thought has almost died. Instead of feeling the need to thoughtfully consider an idea, most liberal minds today work on automatic. One-word reactions to most issues are the liberal norm.
Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ:
Racist
Sexist
Homophobic
Islamophobic
Imperialist
Bigoted
IntolerantAnd here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for:
Peace
Fairness
Tolerance
The poor
The disenfranchised
The environmentThese two lists serve contemporary liberals in at least three ways.
First, they attack the motives of non-liberals and thereby morally dismiss the non-liberal person.
Second, these words make it easy to be a liberal -- essentially all one needs to do is to memorize this brief list and apply the right term to any idea or policy. That is one reason young people are more likely to be liberal -- they have not had the time or inclination to think issues through, but they know they oppose racism, imperialism and bigotry, and that they are for peace, tolerance and the environment.
Third, they make the liberal feel good about himself -- by opposing conservative ideas and policies, he is automatically opposing racism, bigotry, imperialism, etc.
monday may 22, 2006
sad end to the squirrel nut zippers
If you have to ask, you won't care.
katrina exposes bad schools in chocolate city*
As Texas governor, George W. Bush pushed through strong educational standards, backed up by standardized testing, that served as the template for the No Child Left Behind act.
Curiously, Hurricane Katrina has exposed how necessary the reform was. 55,000 children from New Orleans were relocated to Houston and enrolled in their public schools. And they're not doing well, as NPR reports.
Many Katrina-evacuee students in Houston are failing the Texas competency tests. Two-thirds of the evacuees in school failed the state math achievement test. They face being held back a grade, or going to summer school. The school system is getting about $16 million to pay for educating the Katrina evacuees. But that doesn't cover summer school costs.
Even if you attribute some of the failure to students' disrupted lives, one must conclude that New Orleans schools are letting their students down -- they just do not know as much.
Bush was called racist by political opportunists at the time of Katrina for supposedly not caring about black people. Meanwhile black-run school systems stiff their kids of a decent education. The soft bigotry of low expectations, indeed.
* Mayor Nagin's term for New Orleans.
google news stifling dissent
Something frighteningly ominous has been happening on the Internet lately: Google, without any prior explanation or notice, has been terminating its News relationship with conservative e-zines and web journals.
At first blush, one can easily ignore such business decisions by the most powerful company on the Internet as being routine. However, on closer examination, such behavior could give one relatively small (when measured by the size of its workforce) technology corporation a degree of political might that frankly dwarfs even its current financial prowess.
As reported by NewsBusters, the most recent occurrence of this unexplained phenomenon was Friday, May 19, when Frank Salvato, proprietor of The New Media Journal, realized that his content that day hadn’t been disseminated at Google News as it had been on a daily basis since he reached an agreement with the search engine in September 2005.
After sending the Google Help Desk a query concerning the matter, Salvato was informed that there had been complaints of “hate speech” at his website, and as a result, The New Media Journal would no longer be part of Google News. As evidence of his offense, the Google Team supplied Salvato with links to three recent op-eds published by his contributing writers, all coincidentally about radical Islam and its relation to terrorism.
cold cash -- literally
"Thaw me a twenty -- the pizza guy is here." A scene from the Democrat culture of corruption:
A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.
At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa.
On the take, stuffing cash into his freezer...but wait, there's more!
Amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, a congressman used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings — even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops, ABC News has learned.
On Sept. 2 — five days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who represents New Orleans and is a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was allowed through the military blockades set up around the city to reach the Superdome, where thousands of evacuees had been taken.
...the vehicle pulled up onto Jefferson's front lawn so he wouldn't have to walk in the water. Jefferson went into the house alone, the source says, while the soldiers waited on the porch for about an hour.
Finally, according to the source, Jefferson emerged with a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator, which the enlisted men loaded up into the truck.
heard the good news?
Things are better than you think. Yes, I know, most Americans are in a sour mood these days, convinced that the struggle in Iraq is an endless cycle of bloodshed, certain that our economy is in dismal shape, lamenting that the nation and the world are off on the wrong track. That's what polls tell us. But if we look at some other numbers, we'll find that we are living not in the worst of times but in something much closer to the best. What do I mean?
First, economic growth. In 2005, as in 2004, the world economy grew by about 5 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, and the IMF projects similar growth for several years to come. This is faster growth than in all but a few peak years in the 1980s and 1990s, and it's in vivid contrast to the long periods of stagnation or contraction in history.
The great engine of this growth is, of course, the United States, which produces more than one fifth of world economic product and whose gross domestic product has been growing at around 4 percent--4.8 percent in the latest quarter. Other engines are China and India, each with about a sixth of the world's people, and with economic growth of 10 and 8 percent, respectively. But other areas are growing, too: eastern Europe (5 percent), Russia (6 percent), East Asia (5 percent), Latin America (4 percent), even the Middle East (6 percent) and sub-Saharan Africa (5.5 percent).
sunday may 21, 2006
gratitude and praise
COLORADO SPRINGS - An Iraqi mayor stood before troops lined up on the lawn at Fort Carson on Friday morning and said only two words in English.
But those two words brought the crowd to its feet.
"Thank you."
It was a telling gesture from Tal Afar Mayor Najim Al Jibouri, who spoke for about 20 minutes in his native tongue praising the 3rd Armored Cavalry for saving his city from certain ruin.
It was his first trip to the United States, arriving via Washington, D.C., then coming to Colorado Springs with his wife and son.
Al Jibouri, dressed in a black suit with a lavender tie, said he was glad to be back among them.
"Are you truly my friends?" he asked through a translator. "Yes. I walk a happier man because you are my friends. You are the world to me. I smell the sweet perfume that emanates from your flower of your strength, honor and greatness in every corner of Tal Afar. The nightmares of terror fled when the lion of your bravery entered our city."
who's big in baghdad?
tom wolfe
Ladies and Gentlemen, this evening it is my modest intention to tell you in the short time we have together . . . everything you will ever need to know about the human beast.
I love my man Zola. He's my idol. But the whole business exudes irony so rich, you can taste it. It tastes like marzipan. Here we have Darwin and his doctrine that in 1859 rocks Western man's very conception of himself . . . We have the most popular writer in the world in 1888, Zola, who can't wait to bring the doctrine alive on the page . . . We have the next five generations of educated people who have believed and believe to this day that, at bottom, evolution's primal animal urges rule our lives . . . to the point where the fourth greatest pop music hit of 2001, "You and Me, Baby" by the Bloodhound Gang, proclaims, "You and me, baby, we ain't nothing but mammals. / So let's do it like they do on the Dis-cov-ery Channel"--it's rich! rich! rich beyond belief!
New Tom Wolfe!!! Read it all (it's long, so a good candidate for print and read).
where did all the pragmatic liberals go?
It is one of the ironies of the era that many young people who in 1963 reacted with profound grief to Kennedy’s death would, just a few years later, come to champion a version of the left-wing doctrines that had motivated his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
To recall John F. Kennedy’s brief tenure as President is to be reminded of the distance that American liberalism has traveled since those days. His landmark domestic initiatives, passed with modest adjustments after his death, were a civil-rights bill and a major tax reduction to stimulate the economy. The civil-rights legislation is well known, but many have forgotten Kennedy’s across-the-board, 30-percent tax cut, with the highest rate falling from 91 percent to 65 percent—a measure that, two decades later, would inspire Ronald Reagan’s own tax-cutting agenda.
Kennedy was, moreover, a sophisticated anti-Communist who understood the stakes at issue in the cold war. His inspiring inaugural address in 1961 was entirely about foreign policy and the challenge of Communism to freedom-loving peoples. As President, his most notable victory was achieved by confronting the Soviet Union over its missiles in Cuba and by forcing their removal.
And he was nothing if not forthright in declaring America’s universal aims. “Let every nation know,” he famously announced in his inaugural address, “whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.” America, he said in a speech to the Massachusetts legislature a week before he took office, was “a city upon a hill,” an example and a model for the entire world.
Though now remembered for his liberal idealism, Kennedy was, in short, a representative instead of the era’s pragmatic liberalism: an advocate of practical reform at home and American strength abroad. With his bold rhetoric and confidence in problem-solving, he was in many ways the personification of an earlier era’s liberal hopes. Both in substance and in approach, he seemed to express the central principle of the reform tradition—namely, that progress was to be achieved not by the quixotic pursuit of ideals but by the application of rationality and knowledge to the problems of public life. Kennedy himself often spoke in these terms, pointing to ignorance and extremism as the twin enemies to be overcome.
speaking of liberals
Bob at One Cosmos, writes:
...the deviant postmodern view that “whatever one's religion or spiritual path might be, compassion, kindness, and what one famous psychotherapist called ‘unconditional positive regard’ should ideally inform one's every interaction with others, even when we don't like what they believe or have to say.”
This is leftist thought par excellence. While it sounds generous and compassionate, nothing could be more tyrannical and totalitarian, for this type of pseudo-thinking begins in amorality but inevitably ends in immorality. How can it not? To give “unconditional positive regard” to everyone? Who is worthy of such an attitude except for an infant? Furthermore, to value everything without condition is logically to value nothing, for it obliterates the very hierarchy that informs you of what is worthy of value.
...
Leftist thought is actually profoundly anti-Enlightenment, for it fosters a spurious freedom: “Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value. Questions of ‘lifestyle’... come to occupy the place once inhabited by moral convictions and intellectual principles. For the postmodernist, then, ‘culture is no longer seen as a means of emancipation, but as one of the élitist obstacles to this’.... In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises--freedom understood as the emancipation from values that transcend the self--culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary ‘options.’”
saturday may 20, 2006
sen. torricelli linked to oil for food scam
The US Senate is looking into allegations that a former US senator urged Baghdad to give a US company lucrative contracts under the much-criticised United Nations oil-for-food programme.
This is the first time that a leading US lawmaker has been linked to the controversial UN programme, whose shortcomings have been an important element of the Bush administration's critique of the UN.
The investigation involves one of the most vivid figures in US east coast politics, former senator Robert Torricelli, a New Jersey Democrat who was forced to pull out of the 2002 election after being "severely admonished" by the Senate ethics committee for accepting expensive gifts from David Chang, a campaign contributor. Mr Chang, a Korean-American businessman, was found guilty in 2002 of conspiring to violate federal campaign laws and was jailed for 15 months.
Torricelli was forced to drop his bid for reelection at the last moment. Democrat-controlled New Jersey (Louisiana north) violated its laws to allow Frank Lautenberg to run in his stead and keep the seat for the Democrats.
Remember that next time Bugsy Pelosi sings another verse of "culture of corruption."
baby rattlesnakes
While hiking I encountered a baby rattlesnake. As I recounted the story to various people, all said that baby rattle snakes are more dangerous because they haven't learned not to use their full load of venom when they bite.
The more I thought about it, I wondered a) do rattlesnakes have a venom gauge that lets them know when they are low? b) if so, are they smart enough to learn from experience?
My daughter said it was because baby snakes do not realize they can't eat a human -- eyes bigger than head syndrome. I wasn't convinced, so I Googled the topic and found this:
Rattlesnakes only hunt for prey which they can swallow whole, such as small squirrels, rabbits, and other small rodents. Therefore, they will not intentionally hunt and strike a large animal, including humans, unless they feel threatened.
Score one for my daughter. However:
Most rattlesnake bites contain hemotoxic elements which damage tissue and affect the circulatory system by destroying blood cells, skin tissues and causing internal hemorrhaging. Rattlesnake venom also contains neurotoxic components which immobilize the nervous system, affecting the victim's breathing, sometimes stopping it.
Most rattlesnakes have venom composed primarily of hemotoxic properties. Baby rattlesnakes and the Mojave Rattler are the exception; they have venom which contains more neurotoxic properties than hemotoxic -- which makes them very dangerous. The Sea Snake, Coral Snake, and Cobra family of snakes also have venom with dominant neurotoxic characteristics.
File that away for a bar bet.
da vinci code vs. the production code
How times have changed, in many ways for the better. When I was young there were times my Catholic friends couldn't see a movie with me because it had "been condemned." Of course, there's plenty coming out of Hollywood that deserves condemnation.
new dress code for iranians
Did Farah's "evil rays" bring down the Shah?
...The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress.
It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean).
The new law, drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, had been blocked within the Majlis. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from Khatami's successor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The new law replaces the one passed in 1982 dealing with women's clothes. That law imposed the hijab and focused on the need to force women to cover their hair in public. The emphasis on the hijab was based on the belief that women's hair emanates an "evil ray" that drives men "into lustful irrationality" and thus causes harm to Islam. The new law cannot come into effect until consensus is reached on what constitutes "authentic Islamic attire."
In Nazi Germany, Jews were forced to wear the Star of David when in public. As a sop to political correctness, Ahmadinejad plans to have them wear bulls-eyes instead.
UPDATE: It appears that Amir Tehari was reporting a hoax.
test your senses
This interactive quiz is fun. I challenge some of the food combination answers (these are Brits deciding what's tasty after all) but it's entertaining.
what disgusts you?
The BBC Science website has a quiz you can take.
land speed record: 124 miles per hour
A mountain moves 62 miles in thirty minutes.
friday may 19, 2006
friday fun: the evolution of dance
...all in a hilarious six-minute video. Set it to full screen, get off your seat and join in!
pledge week for al gore
The truth? You can't handle the truth! Inconvenient or otherwise.
When "Green Scare" meisters launch pledge drives to juice turnout for their sermon, uh, movie, it makes Michael Crichton's point about environmentalism as a religion.
Put yer hand on your solar panel, close your eyes and repeat after me...
only whitey can be racist
To picture a world run by Democrats just look at the nation's public schools -- bloated bureaucracies, incompetence rewarded, excellence defined away, political correctness and end in itself.
Consider how the Seattle Public Schools defines racism:
Racism:
The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.Individual Racism:
The beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism. Individual racism can occur at both an unconscious and conscious level, and can be bot